I'm a Monitor Lifer

ByDave CookMay 15, 2008

I made first Monitor trip in utero when my dad, a reporter in the paper’s New York bureau, moved to Boston with my expectant mother. They settled in a modest walk up apartment 40 feet from the building where the Monitor is published.

The spirit of nepotism was alive and well at the Monitor then. So I made my first appearance in the paper on page one early in January 1948. I was wearing a diaper and holding a Massachusetts license plate. It is good to get the most embarrassing moment of your career over early.

My next front page appearance did not come until December 1972 when a story I wrote appeared there. By then, I had managed to graduate from college, serve in the US Army, and get a job as a Monitor business writer.

When I left the editor’s office in 2001, I was given a job with an endless supply of free meals as host of the Monitor’s Washington newsmaker breakfasts. For more than 40 years, the paper has asked key public officials to take part in thoughtful conversations with reporters from major newspapers and magazines. Hosting those breakfast gatherings is one of the most unusual and interesting jobs in journalism. More about better journalism through bacon in the next posting.